Anthony Summers

Anthony Summers peels back layers of fact and hearsay to reveal the truth about one of the most powerful Americans of the twentieth century

No one exemplified paranoia and secrecy at the heart of American power better than J. Edgar Hoover, the original director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For this consummate biography, renowned investigative journalist Anthony Summers interviewed more than eight hundred witnesses and pored through thousands of documents to get at the truth about the man who headed the FBI for fifty years, persecuted political enemies, blackmailed politicians, and lived his own surprising secret life. Ultimately, Summers paints a portrait of a fatally flawed individual who should never have held such power, and for so long.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “An important book that should give us all pause, especially policy makers.” 

• The Christian Science Monitor

  “Summers’ case against Hoover is overwhelming.” 

• Norman Mailer

  “Anthony Summers never writes a book that fails to offer accurate material you will find nowhere else.”